Rise Up!

It's my favorite part of the season - the monotony of three games a week is behind us; playing teams we have no rivalry, no history and no intensity with are irrelevant now; the bandwagon fans are out - it's playoffs baby! The Cavs are facing the Wizards in the first round for the third consecutive year (we've knocked them out of the running the first two matchups!) and although we have some rivalries that go further back, this is becoming one for the books.

It starts with one of their players calling LeBron overrated and one of his teammates foolishly blogging that they wanted the Cavs again. It continued on Saturday, in one of the more exciting playoff games I've been to in years, with elbows thrown, hard fouls distributed and the most exciting almost-fight our team's been in. The atmosphere is addicting, I made a point to really soak it all in at the game on Saturday... it's really something to be one of over 20,000 cheering for the same team, getting excited over the same players, booing the other team, jeering the refs for any and all calls that could even be considered close, and losing your voice contributing to the atmosphere. It's tiring, and makes for long days, but completley worth it to be part of this.